Aidan Moher recently commented that he was getting a bit "over-saturated" on fantasy, a feeling I can definitely understand.  Even putting aside personal fatigue, the genre as a whole is in transition right now.  Publishing houses are emphasizing urban fantasy to the extent that epic and high fantasy have been sidelined and newly classified as "traditional" and "old-fashioned."  Authors producing epic fantasy of the type that dominated the marketplace even a few years ago are scrambling just to get published in the current climate. 

Just ask Shawn Speakman, who spent much of this decade conceiving, writing, rewriting, and trying to sell the first novel in a planned trilogy.  His blog is honest and detailed in a very addictive way, and recently I found myself devouring the majority of his archives over the course of a few successive lunch hours.  The post in which he finally announces his intention to stop actively seeking a publisher for his book, Song of the Fell Hammer, would be a sad, disappointing end to a hopeful story without Mr. Speakman's admirable determination to persevere.  Rather than give up, he almost immediately began writing an entirely new, more market-friendly urban fantasy trilogy.  Such perseverance is a prerequisite for a writing life, of course, but genre fiction presents its own unique problem: what do you do when what you want to write most in the world just isn't selling?  Fantasy authors, especially first-timers, face a difficult choice: adapt to the market, or remain unpublished.

Readers face a similar dilemma.  The market for epic fantasy is cornered by a few giants of the genre, the George Martins, Robert Jordans, and Terry Brookses of the world, most of whose work consists of unfinished series.  So many readers looking for good epics are stuck in a holding pattern, digging behind stacks of Laurell K. Hamilton's pornographic rubbish in search of undiscovered high adventure while they await Book 7 (or 5 or 12 or 10) of their favorite doorstop series.

Authors like Joe Abercrombie still manage to write new epic fantasy, albeit it with a snarky, often metafictional twist, but in a noticeably pulpier format.  Abercrombie's trilogy lacks the material trappings of traditional high fantasy; published by Pyr, an imprint of Gollancz, The First Law comes in trade paperback, not hardcover, and the cover art, while eye-catching, is graphic design, not the custom artwork traditionally associated with modern fantasy.  Maps, glossaries, and appendices of any kind are conspicuously absent.  The effort comes off as refreshingly minimalist, but the underlying motive is undeniably minimizing costs. 

These days, having a marketing angle, knowing how to sell your book, seems to be at least as important as the quality of the work itself -- often overtly more so.  But most writers did not study marketing, and as artists their first concern (ideally) should not be mainstream appeal.  The genre fiction marketplace is forcing writers of epic fantasy in particular, unless they have an original idea of Phillip Pullman proportions, to prioritize marketability and to produce work that conforms to current standards of saleability.  I can't help but wonder: is this squeeze on traditional fantasy effectively filtering out what was unworthy anyway, or is it killing the subgenre?  And where is this trend heading?  Will it peak and begin its decline soon, or are we seeing a more long-term shift taking place?

I hope that the good of the new outweighs the bad, that the China Mievilles and Neil Gaimans outpace the writers of penny dreadfuls.  Perhaps it is time for a new sign to go up in the Bard: nymphomaniac vampire detectives to be staked on sight.